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Mental health disorders are among the leading worldwide causes of disease and long-term disability. This issue has a long and painful history of gradual de-stigmatization of patients, coinciding with humanization of therapeutic approaches. What are the current trends in Russia regarding this issue and in what ways is it similar to and different from Western countries? IQ.HSE provides an overview of this problem based on research carried out by Svetlana Kolpakova.

On September 5, Laurie Manchester, Associate Professor of History at Arizona State University, presented her paper on voluntary repatriation of Russians from China to the Soviet Union between 1935 and 1960. The presentation was part of the research seminar, ‘Boundaries of History’, held regularly by the Department of History at HSE University in St. Petersburg. HSE News Service spoke with Laurie Manchester about her research interests, collaborating with HSE faculty members, and the latest workshop.

Dr. Sabyasachi Tripathi, from Kolkata, India, is a new research fellow at HSE University. He will be working at the Laboratory for Science and Technology Studies of the Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge.

The collection of articles presents the proceedings of International Scientific Conference “Spatial Research in the Russian Far East: Problems, Results, Prospects” held in Khabarovsk on December 5, 2017. The authors study the issues of methodology of spatial research, international economic cooperation, evaluation of resource economy's role, energy cooperation, foreign investment attraction, demographics

The paper examines the influence of the size of a firm on the investor’s choice between foreign direct and foreign portfolio investment. The foreign direct investment (FDI) is more efficient due to stronger control rights of the investor. But foreign portfolio investment (FPI) is more liquid. The size of the firm brings about additional concerns regarding the FPI vs FDI trade-off. First, large firms have an attractive feature: the government has an incentive to support large firms who face bankruptcy in order to avoid the harmful consequences of their failure for the economy. On the other hand, large FDI firms are more vulnerable to expropriation or nationalization, at least in countries with poor protection of property rights and weak democratic institutions. In the model higher degree of support from the government to big firms results in higher investment in FPI relative to FDI for bigger firms. The preliminary empirical evidence based on the World Bank Survey of Productivity and Investment Climate** supports the hypothesis of positive relationship between size of the firm and FPI investment.

Over the last two decades national policy makers drew special attention to the implementation of policy tools which foster international cooperation in the fields of science, technology, and innovation. In this paper, we look at cases of Russian-German collaboration to examine the initiatives of the Russian government aimed at stimulating the innovation activity of domestic corporations and small and medium enterprises. The data derived from the interviews with companies’ leaders show positive effects of bilateral innovative projects on the overall business performance alongside with major barriers hindering international cooperation. To overcome these barriers we provide specific suggestions relevant to the recently developed Russian Innovation Strategy 2020.

The paper examines the institute of minimum wage in developed and transition economies and in a number of the developing countries. First of all the institutional mechanism of minimum wage fixing is considered. One of the sections explores the dynamics of absolute and relative levels of minimum wage. The special attention is paid to the impact of the institute of minimum wage on the labour market. The author considers the mechanism of transmission of the minimum wage increases on the employment and unemployment dynamics. The paper also contains the result of the empirical research. The experience of many countries witnesses that large increases in minimum wage levels lead to the stagnation of the employ-ment, especially of the disadvantaged groups. The negative effect is larger for the companies with higher share of labour costs and more active use of unqualified labour, that is small businesses and agricultural enterprises. One of the main conclusions is that the minimum wage is not an effective tool of the poverty reduction as the majority of the recipients live in households of average and upper average income.